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This is an outstanding book, written by a man who from an early age has been a student of the rural / small-town northern Minnesota values of hard work, humility, humor, patience, perseverance, and the pursuit of excellence. The student has now become the teacher, and while the most direct and intended application of Chuck's lessons is to youth baseball, a broader application is to adult living. From cover to cover, the book is infused with wisdom gained through years of coaching and learning and teaching, all contributing to the unique approach Chuck takes, ingeniously combining fundamental baseball skills with his martial-arts perspective. You won't find another book that synergizes the East and the West, the Northern Lights of rural Minnesota and the southern charm of Tennessee to help make your child a better baseball player, a more respectful young citizen, and perhaps to help make you a wiser, more informed parent.

Bill Daly - Amazon

August 14, 2014

This review is from: Amazon.com

I just finished reading this book and it is spot on. You don't have to have a child involved in baseball to get a life lesson out of this book. It is for anyone and everyone and applies to all facets of life. I really enjoyed reading it because it brought me back to my child baseball days and all the things that I experienced from the parents. The only thing is, it sounds like the parents are worse today then they were 30 plus years ago. Chuck Schumacher is an accomplished man and I would highly recommend reading this book.

Coach Schumacher is truly a man of all seasons. He is a youth baseball coach, Karate teacher, an accomplished professional musician, a father, a husband, a public speaker and an author.How to Play Baseball, A Parent’s Role in their Childs’s Journey, demonstrates many of his skills. Coach learned early in his coaching career that parents can be a player’s most important advocate, or they can totally destroy their child’s athletic journey. It all depends on the parents’ attitude and behavior on and off the field. This realization led him to speak to parent’s groups and finally to write this book.As a father, grandfather, pediatrician and author of parenting books, I loved it before I finished the first page. It begins:In many ways, a baseball game is an opportunity for us to show our real character.Can we keep our cool when the umpire makes a bad call? Can we stay calm when our team just blew the lead…? Can we show patience when our son or daughter is struggling to hit the ball? Can we lose with dignity and win with humility? If you’re honest with yourself and the answer to any of the above questions is “no”, you’re not teaching your kids the most important thing: how to find success in life.How do kids react to an umpire’s “bad call”? Coach says, “Because they (kids) respect their parents, kids model their parents’ behavior and try it out for themselves by disrespecting not only the umpires, but their coach and teammates.”In paragraph after paragraph replacing the word “coach” with the word “parent” magically changes this little book into treatise on character development. “In many ways, baseball is like the game of life; there are some basic moral principles to master before we decide to take on the title of Coach” (read “parent).”After reading the authors bio and learning Schumacher was a local man I gave him a call. I told him how much I enjoy and appreciated his book. His stories were so poignant and his advice spot-on. I also told him I thought this was as much a parenting book as a book about baseball. He was delighted as his interest is in helping parents help their children to be better athletes.I also referred him to Coach Dennis King’s book Refuse to be Ordinary; it too, is a great parenting book!

PCA occasionally recommends books for youth sports coaches, parents or student-athletes. Many feature writing by or about PCA National Advisory Board Members!

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How to Play Baseball: A Parent’s Role in Their Child’s Journey by Chuck Schumacher

Parents gain tremendous insight from this book on guiding their children to success through sports. Yes, some ideas here may lead to success in sports, such as the hitting advice, “it’s what they do before they swing that counts.” But the book excels more in elaboration on that advice, which teaches timeless lessons about commitment and preparation that contributes to success in life through sports. Though Schumacher focuses on baseball as one of his coaching passions, the book also draws from his experience as a martial arts instructor, and the values and lessons here apply to all sports.